When bound buttonholes go awry

So anyway... the coat is rolled up and tossed in the corner to be dealt with another day.  I sat down early yesterday morning to finish the buttonholes, even though I still don't have buttons for the blasted thing, and then messed up on one of them to the point that I'll need to rip out the facing on that side and start over again.  No photographic evidence.  I'm slightly embarrassed to say the least.  But what's a girl to do when life throws her a curveball?  Sew another version of Vogue 2514, what another pencil skirt?  How boring, but yet, I've changed it up enough to make it interesting.

I was inspired by this post by Charity Shop Chic the other day, but decided I needed to put my spin on it.  This is what I came up with.  What do you think?

 

It was rather bright this morning when we took photos, so let me show you a little bit closer, so you can see what's going on better.  And yes that is fabric bought on Saturday.  Sometimes you're just inspired right?

The fabric is a printed cotton, about medium weight, meaning it was super easy to work with.  The pleating is silk organza folded over.  I also for the first time pegged the skirt. 

I did it whilst sewing and guess at that.  I think that I ended up taking about an extra 1.5 inches out of each seam.  I made sure the bottom four inches were straight, so it would be easy to hem.  (This pattern has roughly a 1.5 inch hem.  I measured it today for another iteration of the skirt, but before that I didn't actually know, since with the mitering of the corners you don't have to measure the hem.)

For the organza pleating, I cut a strip of organza 8 inches wide and however long my piece of organza is (I think it was 2 yards.)  I think folded it in half longways and sewed each end about 1/8 of an inch from the edge.  I trimmed it to about 1/16th and then turned it right side out.  I then marked the center of the front skirt panel and the organza.  I started with pleats that were 2 inches wide and 1 inch deep.  That didn't work out, so I went to 2 3/8 inches wide and 1 inch deep.  Which almost worked out perfect, but I had forgotten to account for the vent.  I moved the center line 1.5 inches to the side (I think it was to the left, but whichever side puts it closer to the side that the vent is on top?) and then redid the pleats with the 2 3/8ths and 1 inch deep.  It worked out this time.  I basted the organza to the hem (the turned up part only) and then serged it.  If I had to redo, I would have basted the organza with the pleats in it, then bound them with bias tap, and then sewed it to the hem allowance.  It's a tiny bit itchy as is.  Not enough to rip it out and start again, but enough to comment.

Another look at the pleats!  Once it was serged, I slipstitched the hem and then called it a day.  Well not really, I had to finish the waistband as well.  It is also slipstitched, because I didn't feel like stitching in the ditch.  It's tough when your light is burnt out on your sewing machine

Here's a closer look at the pleating. I think it came out pretty nicely.  But what did I pair the skirt with.  It's an old make of mine, made sometime in 2012 (it was made in Yekaterinburg, so that's the only reason I know the year).

It's a Vogue pattern, a Koos van den Akker design.  It's a bias cut top with a cowl.  I used a sweater knit for it.  The fabric was thicker than suggested, so I ended up pleating the shoulders rather than gathering them.  (The black peeking out, is a slip... I wore it to help with the scratchy-ness of the skirt.)

 

Anyway one last look at the outfit.  The fabric doesn't fade out like that, it was really bright this morning, and I totally didn't realize how blown out the pattern got.  This is my feeble attempt at fixing it with photoshop.  Anyway... that's all for today  Tomorrow, I have some new shoes to show you for Shoe Tuesday.  I'm excited.  Now to work on my next iteration of V2514.  It should be good.  Until next time!